Ruidoso council mulls use of GPS vehicle monitors

Tracking devices installed in Ruidoso's garbage and forest debris collection trucks do more than show the position of each vehicle, the units can diagnose engine problems, note the number of stops and the vehicle's speed even in areas where cellular service fails.

But Mayor Ray Alborn questioned if the motive behind the suggestion to expand the use of the system really might be to monitor the actions of village employees, and Councilor Jim Stoddard said he wasn't convinced the $1,500 per vehicle expense and monthly service charges are justified for a village as small as Ruidoso.

"Five units come to about $12,000 for the year. For a village our size, I think it's the department director's responsibility to know where their vehicles are," Stoddard said during the council meeting Tuesday. "I just can't justify taxpayers money to have that luxury. If we were in Albuquerque or Hoboken or wherever, maybe so, but this is Ruidoso. You can't ever convince me this is a good use of taxpayer money."

A decision whether to continue and expand the use of the units was not needed that night, Village Manager Debi Lee said, but the direction must be clear for preparation of the village's annual budget submitted in May for the new fiscal year beginning July 1.

Councilor Denise Dean, who said she's intrigued by the possibilities and sat in on a training session, clarified that the idea isn't to install a unit on every village vehicle. "We were thinking about rotating them around and checking different departments to see if there is a benefit," she said.

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"There is a huge benefit for (Solid Waste Director Jeff Kaplan), because of the type of vehicles he has. It was just something we wanted to research, something down the road."

Issues

Alborn said his question is whether the worry is over the equipment or over village employees to verify they are on the job and in the right places.

Dean said she thought it would cover many things. "We've had issues with employees not being on their job and we not knowing where they were (for an extended period)," she said. Issues also occurred over vehicles not being maintained or being used outside of their designated territories, she said. "We're talking about taxpayer's money involved in these vehicles and we want to make sure they are accountable and maintained correctly," she said.

"If our employees are not driving where they are supposed to be, then we should be getting new employees," the mayor said.

"I think this council has more important things to deal with," Stoddard said.

Kaplan reminded councilors that in January 2012, a committee that included two councilors, Dean and Rafael Salas, and the mayor was formed to look into Global Positioning Satellite companies. The village chose GPS Fleet Solutions because it was only one of three firms submitting quotes that offered the ability to have both cell phone and satellite communication, he said.

"Due to our location, you cannot not rely on the GPS signal coming from (cellular coverage)," Kaplan said. "We need (service) directly from satellites themselves." Unlike a metropolitan area, the mountainous county is riddled with cellular dead spots, he said.

Last month, he included the cost per unit in the manager's report, noting that each unit ran $1,575 and that a total of $7,875 was expended for five. "That's a one-time charge," he said. "There's no software licensing or anything else."

However, a monthly fee is charged for the cell and satellite services that combined come to $425 for all of the units. If cell service isn't available, the system automatically rolls over to satellite, he said. Over six months, the service cost the village $2,550, Kaplan said.

He reviewed a typical report showing the number of stops per vehicle and for how long, the number of miles to the landfill and the mileage driven by each garbage or grapple truck.

"One of the things I did when came here five years ago was to take a handheld (Geographical Information System) and I drove to physically locate each one of our 3,700 dumpsters throughout the community," he said. The system tells him every time a dumpster is lifted to be emptied and he no longer has to go out to check. If someone is substituting for a regular driver, Kaplan said the route is laid out on the system to follow.

The onboard diagnostics relay any equipment failures to him and other data.

"That's how solid waste has been using this system," Kaplan said. "But you can tie together any number of opportunities of how to track equipment, track routing, track a work order." The problem with a truck stranded on the way to the isolated regional landfill near Orogrande can be diagnosed by the system to help Kaplan decide remotely whether to contact the El Paso company that services the vehicles or to pursue another option.

Dean said she would like more discussion on the units "a little further down the road when we're talking budget."